American Architecture
Colonial Architecture

Developed from European style of Middle Ages
and Renaissance.
 Colonies eventually adapted European
influences to suit tastes and needs.
 Built structures with resources that were
available.
 Spanish colonies (southwest America) built
adobe structures.
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Combined American Indian and Spanish architectural
styles.
Spanish Adobe
Architectural Adaptation

When Europeans settled in North America, they
brought with them architectural traditions and
their construction techniques.
 Northern colonists built wooden houses,
designed to withstand cold winters.
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Most houses were small, easily heated with small
rooms.
Houses usually had sloping roofs to shed snow.
New York mainly Dutch at time.
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Followed architectural styles from Netherlands.
Built houses with wooden shudders.
Spanish Influence

Pueblo people built houses of adobe, a sundried clay brick.
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Held together with exposed wooden beams.
Decorated houses with balconies of wrought
iron.
 Adobe churches with rectangular nave, exterior
buttresses, and two symmetric towers.
 Finely worked columns that serve only as
ornamentation.
English Influence
Architecture of the thirteen colonies is
marked by the English style.
 Climatic and religious differences
produced some American elements.
 Central position of the fireplace is
reflective of the heating needs of the
winter.
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Covered with clapboard and uses wood
for the frame, two characteristics typically
American.
Georgian Style
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Appeared during the 18th century.
Characterized by proportion and balance;
simple mathematical ratios to determine the
height of a window in relation to its width.
 Respects principle of symmetry and uses the
materials that are found in New England:
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Red brick, white painted wood, and blue slate used
for roof.
Style is used to build houses of plantation workers
and the rich merchants living on Atlantic coast
Mount Vernon
Public Architecture
English influences continue to mark the
buildings constructed.
 Buildings of these new federal and
judicial institutions adopted the classic
architecture characteristics:
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Columns
– Domes
– Reference to ancient Rome and Greece.
The Industrial Revolution
Began in Great Britain during 1700’s.
 Spread to North America in early 1800’s.
 For centuries, architects focused mainly on
churches, castles, palaces and country
housing.
 Revolution required factories, railroad
stations, warehouses, & office buildings.
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Required new methods for new structures.
Industrial Effects

Early 1800’s greatly affected development of
architecture.
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Industrial Revolution created demand for
architects.
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New types of buildings.
New construction techniques.
Many architects revived styles from past.
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Rapid growth of industrialization.
Greek Revival, Gothic Revival.
Many combined two or more styles into one.
Industrial Revolution

Success of the Great Exhibition in London
brought fairs to U.S.
 Crystal Palace Exhibition housed in
revolutionary glass and iron structure.
 Similar special facilities such as the Crystal
Palace had opportunity to be built.
 Architects designed new structures and new
idea.
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Led to the influence of skyscrapers.
Crystal Palace
Early Modern American

Henry Richardson first important architect in
U.S.
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Included Modern Architecture elements in
designs.
Worked with medieval styles, especially
Romanesque.
Wanted to simplify exterior ornamentation.
Designed Glessner House and Marshall
Field & Company in Chicago.
 Chicago became center for Modern
Architecture in the U.S.
Early Modern American
After Great Chicago Fire, architects
were able to test new ideas for new
city.
 First metal frame skyscraper
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10-story Home Insurance Building.
Steel frame supported building.
Walls provided no support but curtains.
 Steel
frame and curtain wall began basic to
modern design.
Slick Style
"Stick Style" is one American method
of house construction that uses
wooden rod truss work.
 Buildings are topped by high roofs with
steep slopes.
 Design is asymmetrical and the interior
space is more open.
 The exterior is not bare of decoration.

Shingle Style
Replaced “Slick Style”
 Characterized by simplicity and the attention
to comfort.
 Simplification of the volumes and the exterior
decoration.
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Continuous wood shingles on siding and roof
Irregular roof line.
Asymmetrical floor plan
Four-square Architecture

Foursquare reconfigured American city
neighborhoods in the 1890's.
 Theme is the most evident design to a traveler
passing through suburbs.
 Built to be simple.
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Typical house was either 30x30 feet, or 30x36 feet,
for deeper lots.
– 2.5 stories with four (more or less equally-sized)
rooms on each full floor.
– Hipped roof.
– Porch spanned the entire, or nearly, front of the
house
– Exterior walls were plain.
Skyscrapers
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Most notable innovation in U.S. architecture.
Safety elevator made skyscrapers possible.
Load bearing stone walls mainly made
impossible for skyscrapers greater than 20
stories.
Steel support frame began to be used.
Most are boxy looking.
Postmodernists feel skyscrapers should no
longer be box-like.
Began use of contours and bold decoration.